Thread: Blowouts Two
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Old 06-05-2011, 10:10 AM   #4
traveler
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 110
My tires were on the rear axle, but one was right side, the other left. I will need to check the date, but they were bought in July,2007. I have not traveled too much since then--only 11,000 miles, two long summer trips.

But as I said, I have not traveled since summer 2010.

I called Goodyear about blowout one and said there was no damage and they routed me to warrenty people, who said "go to a dealer." Turns out the property damage group there is much more eager to solve problems.

I am going to go back to them tomorrow and say there was damage, which is true, just not much--my cable "hanger" on the slide was ripped off and lost.

Now for the second blowout a few days later on the driver side, the fender metal was bent slightly ( years ago the same thing happened, and it cost nearly $2000--Goodyear paid-- to repair).

This time the metal deformation was considerably less, but the steel support that welds to the frame was bent and the sheet metal above the tire was ripped, considerably. I think that the floor is still strong and that the slide is not likely to sag any--does not appear to now. This could be completely repaired, or augemented with another support, or ignored. Most likely any of those solutions are ok.

I am going to see what Goodyear will do on both issues. I hope they do not decide the tires are too old, even that they are low mileage.

But I sure do hate to mess with all of this. However, I am still rolling and not as depressed today as last night. A good night's sleep goes a long way to strengthen one's resolve.

Finally, I would say that the tires lost tread, as opposed to exploding. This is certainly true for the first tire, which is mainly still a tire, albeit it one without any tread. The second tire was sort of a mixture of explode or shedding tread..Probably more of the latter, as the tire still looks like a tire.

I have learned how to change a tire pretty quickly. First make sure you loosen the lugs before jacking--use a torque wrench for better leverage.Then, jack with two bottle jacks on the frame. Raise one to its max, then block up the second and continue raising the trailer. The spare tire and wheel is heavy but not too so. It is surprisingly easy to lift it onto the wheel bolts. It took about 30 minutes. However, this is not something I want to get really good at. But It is easier than waiting for road service. All this, if you can keep rolling by only changing a tire.
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